Ted Warren's ruminations on teaching, playing, writing, and listening. And also pizza.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Rudiment of the moment or it's been a long time since we Rock n' Rolled!

Hey all,

I thought I'd talk a bit about backward Flams and Ruffs. I found out the idea of a backward Flam from a Modern Drummer interview with Lyle Lovett drummer Dan Tomlinson.

They felt a bit weird to play at first. I kept my hands in the same position as a normal flam but I had to move the main stroke hand before the grace note hand (unlike normal flams where you drop both hands at the same time) to have the grace note hit slightly later. The same technique applies to the backward ruffs. In both cases there's sort of a cool echo quality they have.

Here's 2 different solos demonstrating the concept.

These sort of ideas fit into my basic philosophy of the rudiments. When we first start playing, they are ways of building strength and flexibility at the drums. Later on though, I view them (and most elements of music, for that matter) as clay that I can play with and form into any shape I want. We can create a beautiful statue, or more likely in my case, a cheap looking lopsided ashtray, but we"re still all using the same basic materials.